This is my personal weblog, about my daily life and adventures. I maintain it so I can be in touch with my friends who are far away, and as part of a personal memory project.
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2009.06.23
Someone sent Michelle an adorable picture of children enjoying the mural she painted. A wrote a story about it, with a little help.
(  SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2009.06.23.MichelleMural_AdanStory.shtml)
-1 Story >>> @>+-+--
2009.06.22
I'm very tired. I worked 76 hours on this job, about three times what I estimated; my right hands hurts in a whole new way. Someone wants me to work tomorrow, too.
The good news is that Delaney is back. He was detained unfairly and illegaly, and the federal court will hear his case this week. He sat in jail for a year, and he spent that whole time in the library. His vocabulary has really increased and I believe he is going to win his case. A lot of things went wrong while he was in jail, though, and those things are going to be tough to fix.
We went down to Redwood City Sunday to take my mom to a wedding. It's great to have a change to hang out with my people sometimes. I'd like to do it a lot more but it's hard to get my head around the badness of the Old Testament and the goodness of the folks who more or less believe in it. E worked this out for himself somehow, but the New Testament is a LITTLE easier.
I saw my cousin Gene on Sunday morning, first time in 40 years we had had to hang out. That was nice. There was some bad news, though: his kids don't speak to each other. That's pretty sad. Siblings are such a great opportunity. I hope things improve for them.
And Barry and I said goodbye to friends at Enssaro in Oakland. I thought I didn't like Ethiopian food, but I was wrong. http://www.yelp.com/biz/enssaro-oakland
(SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2009.06.22.Delaney.shtml)
~ One year ago >>> @>+-+--
2008.06.08
size ten pants! leaving the label on so I can prove it. I believe my slightly smaller size is because of last week's food poisoning. whatevs.
(SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2008.06.08.SizeTen.shtml)
~ Two years ago >>> @>+-+--
2007.07.29
Didn't do much today. Fred and Katie came over for dinner. For hors d'oevres, Katie kind of sauteed some peanuts with olive oil and cumin and sugar, which caramelized, so we had that with ice cream for dessert. I showed Kay Becca's post about saving energy and we talked about things we could do.
(SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2007.07.29.PortTownsend.shtml)
~ Three years ago > @>+-+--
2005.10.18
>Kent drove me to get my van back. He has a new story in the Berkeley Daily Planet about his search for information about his grandmother. Some time today after I got my van home, someone wrote my name and a swear word on it with a laundry marker. I don't know of anyone who is mad at me, but I have to say I also don't feel that bad about inadvertently offending someone whose chosen method of expression is to write on my van. It must have been a fairly tall child, and I thought all the children around here were pretty great. So, I don't know.
I went to talk to Dr. Adelman about whether he can replace this filling, then I talked to my mom and dad for a while. Dad will be given a recovery bed in Lytton III, so he and mom will be able to visit without my dad having to do such hard work taking care of mom.
I edited twenty or thirty mutual fund commentaries, some while riding on BART and then sitting in a meeting. I finally went to a BAEF meeting. Adobe came and talked to us about Acrobat. They actually designed it to work the way it does. They think you are going to write a document in Word, save it to Acrobat, send it around to all your colleagues to get comments, export it back to word with all the comments in it, and then accept the comments in Word. So they haven't even tried to make acrobat accept comments or do any of the crucial things it won't do. They think it is a collaboration tool, not a publishing tool. The whole point of a portable document format should be to publish.
It was fun to leave the meeting with all my E&c. friends. Barbara felt bad about not meeting any new people, but I felt like I was in with the in crowd.
(SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2005.10.18.Acrobat.shtml)
~ Four years ago >> @>+-+--
(http://SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2004.08.22.Mountains.shtml)
It's overcast.
The ice I got for the ice chests melted already. People get new ice every day? That can't be right.
I want to visit Big Bend, to enjoy the hot springs, but it's far away and the only efficient way to visit it is to leave over the little road to McCloud. That road looks the same on the map as the other road that was so problematic, so I asked several people about the road and they all said they didn't think there was a road. I asked a few people about visiting Big Bend and nobody thought I should, and a ranger told me someone had been mugged there the day before. That is why I decided not to visit Big Bend and stayed at this lake last night. But now, it's Sunday. What is the point of going to Mount Shasta on Sunday, if I want to talk to businesspeople. And there is a blue road from this lake to Big Bend. So I decided to try it. I have gasoline, and this road isn't so steep as the other. So I drove for a couple of hours. The road was ok, but there were unmarked junctions and it was hard to know what road I was on. I wished I had my compass, which is attached so nicely to my other car, and a much better map (I asked, but AAA doesn't make the little area maps anymore, and each office only has that maps that cover its own area). Road like this, if I did have trouble, I'd never see the CHP or anyone else. A big hunk of carcass lay on the road, dragged up there by something bigger. It makes sense to use the road as a dining table...it's more or less horizontal, and it's a clearing, so a critter can have some space to get leverage to attack his meal.
But soft! The landscape! The plants. This is why I like the Cascades. Besides the piney pines up there, each level of the forest has its own size of little fairy plant, all different shapes and different greens, with space between so you can appreciate the combination (a lot like West Marin, actually). This was a lovely drive, although in two hours I twice ended up back where I started.
So, I get the message at last. I'm not going to Big Bend. I drove up 89 for a while. The road was all piebald, different colors of macadam, and the forest on either side of the road was partially logged, just scattered stumps among grown trees. Don't know why that would be. There is a sign for Siskiyou County. This is the first county I have been in since I left Auburn that is not a Sierra county [wrong--Shasta County wasn't either...ed.]. And whoops! I guess they have some money for paving the roads here. And WHOOPS! WOW! Mount Shasta. Oh, my god. Mount Shasta now takes up the whole horizon, but I just see it intermittenly through the clouds. That first view was really something.
I stopped a few times to watch lovely rivers, then at McCloud to check out Heritage Days (yawn), have some coffee, and talk to the local real estate guy. The East side of Shasta is too wet for me, I think, but he referred me to a good gal for the places I was headed.
I drove up to Weed, showed the internet cafe how to provide network access instead of just boxen (pretty simple, someone had already set them up with a dhcp server, they just didn't realize people could plug in), and used the access. (Those people are really nice, but were gone when I was done so I couldn't buy anything. Must return in the morning.) Then I met with the Realtor, another fantastic meeting, and returned to amazingly wonderful Stewart Mineral Springs to camp. They had assigned me to a space already occupied by Laurie and Andy and their dog Bill, but the spot is so big it is no problem. This place is so beautiful. It is on a lovely cold stream, and the water is pumped into a bathhouse and heated. The whole place smells of cedar, which is growing all around, and is lovely and landscaped just a little to take advantage of the surroundings. In addition, there are sinks! This makes the toothbrushing thing much more appealing. I showered before I met the Realtor, and tomorrow I can wash my hair, if it isn't raining. The shower is outside.
(SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2004.08.22.Mountains.shtml)
~ Five years ago >> @>+-+--
2003.10.07
I saw these movies yesterday and today:
Apsara 26 minutes "In the early morning hours of the sleepy Cambodian countryside, Domrey, a former boxer and convicted murderer, escapes from prison on a mission to seek out his estranged daughter, a traditional dancer." (good, especially watching the dancer. really good at that.)
American Made 25 minutes "The Singh family is in the middle of nowhere. Stranded. A breakdown en route to the Grand Canyon. The family Anant and Nageena from India and their two American-born sons Jagdesh and Ranjit attempt to survive the heat, the approaching darkness, and each other. The expanse and solitude of the Southwestern desert surrounds them, and their only hope is the remote highway and the occasional car that drives by. Anant, the father, clad in his traditional turban and sporting blue jeans and a polo shirt, sticks out his thumb in the classic hitchhiker fashion as a car approaches, hoping someone will stop and help. The car speeds on past them, down empty highway. Undaunted the family patriarch is confident that the next one will pull over and give them a hand.
Ranjit, the teenaged son, isn¹t so sure: 'Dad, no one will stop for you because you look like a terrorist.'" (kind of slick, but enjoyable)
All That I Perceive 4 minutes "An unsuccessful eye surgery that caused the filmmaker to have double vision gave her a unique and broad visual terrain that served as an inspiration to think about the world in a new way." (arty. good)
Driving Lessons A Chinese American Family deals with success, from the point of view of the daughter, who feels neglected by the father when he passes driving and other duties on to the mother, who isn't really able to handle them.
The Rotting Woman 17 minutes "A decaying relationship and an alarming skin complaint. Time to make an escape."
Rapid Guy Movement 8 minutes Gay speed-dating
Una Leccion 8 minutes "A lesson of love?...or
just a dance lesson? What is the Tango if not a love affair?" (it was lovely)
That Old One 10 minutes "Our protagonist (Kevin McKidd) wakes up from a night on the town to find himself in bed with a woman not his wife.
Walking home, he plays through the possible scenarios in his mind, deciding that dishonesty is the best policy. Then he notices his wedding ring is missing. What happened to it? And how is he going to explain its absence to his wife?" (funny)
Keys of Life A man's girlfriend breaks up with him over the phone, then he gets mugged, then he goes to work at the key store and a customer copies a key to his girlfriend's house. Probably her new boyfriend. (The best thing about this movie was cool pictures of keys going into locks and tumblers turning.)
VIOLET LIVES UPSTAIRS 18 minutes "In a small seaside town, Violet, 35, lives upstairs to her Italian landlord Frank and his 25-year-old son, Gian. She spends her days making fimo jewellery and lampshades that she sells at the local craft market. With a leg damaged from a terrible car accident, Gian spends most of his days at home. At night, he phones Violet. In whispered conversations, Gian reads her romantic Italian sonnets. Come morning, Violet must navigate her feelings for Gian, the rent money she owes Frank and the complex desire of both a father and his son." (sexy and romantic)
My Architect: A Son's Journey 1 hrs. 50 min. "Nathaniel Kahn's intimate exploration of his father's life. Louis Kahn, the renowned architect, was found dead in Penn Station in 1974. He died in massive debt. His obituary in The New York Times mentioned Kahn's importance to modern architecture. As it turned out, very few people knew that Louis Kahn led a kind of double life. He had a wife and daughter, but he also had two other children by two mistresses. Nathaniel traces his father's past, from his childhood to his prominence in the world of architecture. He interviews Louis' peers, including Frank Gehry, Philip Johnson, and I.M. Pei. He also interviews his own mother and his two half sisters. The filmmaker tries to reconcile his father's prestige with his financial ruin, and his passion for his work with his insensitive treatment of the women in his life and the children he fathered. He also travels the globe examining his father's legacy -- the buildings he designed throughout the world." http://www.moviepie.com/filmfests/my_architect.htm (This was interesting because Louis Kahn was such a character. Some people thought he was such a jerk. He was just about not allowed to work in Philadelphia. And some people thought he was a great man. Also, I think we saw his buildings in the order he built them. From an inauspicious beginning they got cooler and cooler.)
Rode Inspiration Trail. I did a good job with all the hills and didn't blow out my knees.
(SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2003.10.07.Movies.shtml)
~ Six years ago >> @>+-+--
2002.06.11
I am so sick of being crippled, I am committing to do what is essentially three exercise sessions a day, which will bring it up to a couple of hours. Oh, Lordy. How do people work.
Speaking of working, it says in the paper that a big giant study indicates that when their first child is a boy, men do an average of twice as much extra paid work to support their families as when their first child is a girl.
(SunahWeb.com/cgi/storyprinter.cgi?Life/2002.06.11.MoreExercise.shtml)
~ 7 ~ 8 ~ 9 ~ 10 ~ 11 ~ 12 ~ 13 <<< Long ago
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